


Up in Flames

by Hobthrush



Category: BPRD - Fandom, Hellboy - Fandom
Genre: Black-outs, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Nudity, pyrokinesis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:42:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23203402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hobthrush/pseuds/Hobthrush
Summary: Liz falls asleep in the library armchair, and has a wet-dream with disastrous results. Hellboy has to cover for her, while puzzling over the incident.
Relationships: Hellboy/Liz
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	1. Wet dream, hot-seat.

**Author's Note:**

> Hoping to continue. Basing this off of a combination of the comics and the Del Toro film. Set to take place before the events of the first film.

Liz nodded off in the library armchair.

She’d slumped into the wingback in front of the warm fireplace embers, book settling against her stomach. Her mind swimming in the comforting void behind her eyes. 

She sensed his footsteps. Small but heavy, clacking on across the polished marble, clicking on the wooden stairs, sinking audibly into the carpeting.

She felt his hands carefully collect and tuck aside her book. His hand tucking her hair from her face, and warmly draping her in a quilt. He stretched, setting off across the library for the art deco door into the main hall.

Her mind lingered on the half conscious sense of his presence, like a reassuring center of gravity.

In the theatre of her mind she drew him closer, feeling the warmth and weight of him all about her. Warmth spread and flooded wetly between her thighs.

Hellboy had just a millisecond to contemplate the odd singed aroma as he lingered at the door, when the smoke alarm sounded and the sprinklers deployed.

He turned and rushed across the carpet, to where the chair blazed- the blue corona of dancing heat tracing the now naked writhing shape of the sleeping woman. 

“ah crap….”

He glanced about anxiously as the searing heat hissed and steamed under the ineffectual efforts of the sprinkler head above. The chair blackened, ashing and buckling in the conflagration.

He reached out to shake her awake- recalling all to clearly how lost in her sensations she could become- the hours of black out unresponsiveness that could result from even a wakeful fit of holocaust across her body. He ran for the nearest fire extinguisher and took aim.

“sorry kid”.

He tried to keep the burst as short as possible. breathing deep as the smoldering died away and left her extinguished.

She lay limp, ashy and sooty. The frost of the Co2 fading it’s white traces over her flesh, leaving little crystals on her stilled eyelashes. The grime that was all that remained of charring away herclothing began to spatter and run down her with the descending drops.

The sound of the smoke alarm returned to his burning ears and distracted mind as she heaved a sigh and slumped back into the disintegrating chair.

Dammit. He’d only left her for a moment. He'd put aside the book, tucked her in- and was off across the carpeting to catch a much needed shower. what on earth had happened with her in those intervening-

He snapped back to the present as he heard the ringing of approaching shoes down the marble hall.

“shit”

He looked around frantically and caught Abe’s shocked eye glancing in from the grand tanks wall, but he merely shrugged back.

Standing shirtless and finding nothing to cover the soaked grubby Liz he settled for standing proprietorially before the chair back, that thankfully concealed its occupant from the door.

The doors burst open.

“all good! it’s all under control!” he beamed at the stunned gathering of armed suits, fire-fighters and the panting tardy approach of…oh god, it _had_ to be Manning.

“What in the hell happened in here!” the man barked over the rushing water.

Lying came galloping to the rescue. The last thing that was going to slip past Hellboy right now was a leering bureaucratic asshole just itching to put Liz on lockdown in a thorazine fueled haze.

“Nothing much, fell asleep with a cigar.”

A couple agents broke away to turn off the sprinklers and alarm.

A few more stepped forward to inspect the chair.

He thought fast.

“ah- don’t bother, it’s trashed. I got it.”

His tail covertly tucked her legs up on the buckling remnant of burnt leather and charred springs, as he lifted the chair- leaning it against him to conceal her between the raised back and his chest.

She shifted damp and supple against his bare chest.

Official hands reached out to assist.

“I wouldn’t!- it’s still hot. Just get the door will ya.”

“How dare you just shrug this off!- just how irresponsible are you!” Manning yapped.

“look, you look after the books, I’ll look after the chair. Yell at me bright and early tomorrow morning. I need some shut eye.”

He strode away from the protests. Clattering as rapidly as his cloven feet could carry him to his room. Easily managing the weight but struggling with his balance.

He slammed the vault door behind him, and heaved a massive sigh.

The crispy wooden frame buckled in his tense grip.

“crap!”

He eased the wreck down as carefully as he could- recovering the limp damp soot nymph from the ticking, coiling, skeletal springs.

He hissed as a popped coil rent a massive cut on her thigh, which began to bleed.

He lifted her dangling weight up in his arms, massive stone hand easily supporting her from her waist and back.

He jostled her lightly.

“Liz? come on kiddo, don’t drag this out.”

He heaved a sigh, recognizing a full blown episodic collapse.

He eased her onto the tousled covers of his truck bed, nudging away a few puzzled cats.

He rushed for a towel and his first aid kit.

“Ok, I got this. I gotcha.”

He heaved her onto one side, wiping away at the grimy sheen, 

“just a little sting” he muttered as much for his sake as hers, prepping the gash with peroxide.

He eased a large cloth bandage over the scrape.

and heaved a sigh.

He brushed the bangs from her sooty face.

She was icy cold to the touch. 

“Shit- the Co2”

He started toweling at her anxiously, trying to rub some warmth back into her chilled limbs. 

“I mean I don’t think _foam_ would have been great either but… shit.”

He tore through his dresser- emerging with a massively oversized and modified sweater with only one arm.

He slipped it over her, rubbing, and breathing warm puffs into it.

“sorry- just cant get this damned hulking lump through a sleeve."

He folded the comforter over her legs-

Just in time to hear the door buzz.

“shit” he hissed- tossing the covers over her head and hastily rushing to greet the door.

Professor Bruttenholm stared gloomily in from the gaping aperture. 

Hellboy shoved idly at the crumbling remnants of the chair with his hooves. 

His father heaved a sigh.

“you know…I’m not sure you’ve gotten any better at cleaning up your messes than when you were 4 years old…have you grown up at all?”

“well, you must admit, at least the messes have gotten bigger.”

“my books….are soaked. That was my favorite chair….”

“yes sir.”

“Abe-*huff*- is refusing to comment.”

Little amphibian choir boy cant lie for shit, he hissed in the privacy of his mind.

“not like him, to cover up for you...”

He paced inside- shuffling around the trashed room.

He eyed a discarded bloody washcloth, and the corner of a soot blackened towel. 

As if reading Hellboy's previous thoughts he piped in.

“you were never much good at lying either. Never liked me to be angry at you, but then again you never had an ounce of shame to spare.”

He gripped the demon that was his son warmly by the arm.

“Why then do you seem so satisfied that I’m lecturing you, yet so anxious about what happened?”

Dammit.

“Just a long day…” he tried.

The old man’s face broke into a soft crinkled smile.

“I think I understand.”

He pointedly shifted a scrap across the floor with the tip of his cane.

Hellboy glanced down at the blackened fob and keys of Liz’s locker.

Bruttenholm glanced over the the lumpy surface of Hellboy’s covers.

“Well at least you’ve learned to make the bed.”

He leaned in- squeezing his son’s shoulder, and meeting him with suddenly serious eyes.

“Behave yourself.” he rasped.

He turned on his heel and left, a little smile still tugging at his mouth.

Hellboy turned back to the bed.

He’d seen it all before…but damn. Generally it was in the field, frantic and well….just reality. 

It had been his job to heft the sack of potatoes after she went critical for as long as he could remember working with her. She’d been just a frightened grumpy kid. Scrawny at first, then maturing and self conscious about the sudden hearty arrival of a little puppy fat. She used to go ballistic when he’d poke at it with a massive stone finger. “test baked potato with fork.”

And she’d sure looked like one in those foil emergency blankets…when she didn’t melt them.

Just an inconvenient reality. Most thing’s just weren’t fire proof. Before it had never meant much, never stirred up much beyond his general concern and determination to keep her safe.

It had always meant a bit more to her. Because he was safe handling her…when no-one else was. Bad days when she needed everyone else far away. She could loose her tempter with him, lash out. But knowing he was the only person she was safe doing that with…his hugs were always forthcoming, and lectures generally saved up for special occasions. 

It was just a familiar emergency. But tonight. There had been something about the way she moved. The way her body curved.

He’d had never thought twice about keeping her warm while they’d wait for extraction. tucking her under his coat, letting her rest skin to skin to benefit off his raised body heat. 

Somehow he felt it would be different….wrong….to do so tonight.

He sighed, turning to change into a seldom employed set of pajamas.

He breathed deep as he rested her over his chest. "That's another one you owe me Cinder-block...."

He wasn't sure what her morning mood would be...incandescent probably. "well, don't say I never did ya any favors. Manning nearly got an eyefull."

He breathed another puff of warm air into her shoulders. Rubbing at her back frantically as he settled back with a creak.

He drifted off...and dreamt of fire.


	2. Hot-Potato

Bruttenholm tutted to himself as he looked over the damp pages.

Abe stood wringing his webbed hands in anxiety.

“oh for gods sake don’t hurt yourself Abraham. I’m not going to _make_ you tell me anything.”

“tell? thing?” he bumbled

“I wouldn’t be much of a father if I couldn’t read you two at least as well as these.”

Abe sighed.

“He reminds me everyday. That same stubborn little child trying to convince me he’d eaten all my butterfly specimen and pissed on my notes….He didn’t want the _cat_ to get in trouble.”

“I…I can tell you aren’t angry. You’re even a bit proud…But you are…worried.”

Trevor sighed. “Are you?”

Abe shrugged. “it’s all perfectly natural-” he stopped himself short.

“oh dear, oh dear…” the old man wheezed, eyeing the scorching on the carpet.

“saw it all did you?”

“not much to see….more to feel….it is not his fault.” Abe spoke carefully.

Bruttenholm nodded.

“I’m not sure just what I ought to do….she ought to get out more…”

“meet ‘new and igniting people’” Abe quoted. “it worries her.”

“dyed in the wool cynics those two…I hope _I_ didn’t do that.”

“ _I’m_ not a cynic”

“I don’t think I can really take credit.” Bruttenholm smiled, and gazed worriedly at the carpet once more.

“is it really so bad?”

“none of you have enough normal to go around. If you’d had any, maybe you’d understand my feelings….I’m not angry….just abit….shocked. I have a soft spot for you lot…but this _is_ getting ...confusing.”

Liz stirred 

“did I do something really stupid last-”

She jerked awake, jabbing an elbow into Hellboy as she struggled to rise

“ouch!!- jesus kid!”

“Red what the hell!!”

“Ok-long story. In summary you ruined father’s chair”

“I-” she shook off the sleep and tried to sort through her…memories? dream?

“we covered for you. No harm done.…well asides from the chair, the carpet, some water damage and…”

He caught the anxious gleam in her eye.

“hey you ok kiddo?”

She heaved a sigh, slumping her head forward on his chest. Just a stupid dream.

“watch the elbows, you’re not as light as you used to be cinder-block.”

“just shut up…”

“sure you’re ok?” 

She shook her head.

“you really earned the nick-name this morning” he said dusting at her hair

She raised her head, looking over the dusky mess of her exposed right arm.

“you’re gonna need a shower before they catch you like this you know”

“I’m a public menace….” she hissed

“nah, just a private mess.”

He stretched, lifting her up as he clambered to his shaky crook legs.

“here, cops and robbers like the good old days. I’ll run interference while you grab a shower.”

She looked at him tensely.

“you wanna get caught?”

She shook her head.

“atta girl.”

She stood nervously gripping down the edges of her baggy sweater as she peered around the corner. Red craned his neck from his outlook up the corridor and waved eagerly for the go ahead. She darted barefoot through the open locker-room door.

Hellboy stood shuffling by the steaming stall door with a towel, a change of clothes, and a weather eye to the entrance.

The water shut off and Liz knocked Shave and a haircut at the door. Hellboy tapped out a response and passed her back the goods over his shoulder.

She took them gratefully, fumbling awkwardly as something unexpected fell rolling across the floor.

“oh damn…”

“oh no kid, you lost your dynamite, the heist is blown.” He mocked

“for fucks sake- I…you could tell huh…”

He shuffled forward and plucked up the fallen tampon.

“it’s dynamite, not rocket science.”

He handed it carefully back under the stall door.

“No peeking!”

“I don’t need to, I got the show for free.” He waggled it patiently.

She snatched it back.

“you are such a pain.”

“I am aren’t I. Should have let you bleed out, save you some embarrassment.”

She shuffled, feeling the silence ring like a bell with the un-comfy task at hand and his listening ears. At last she exhaled in relief and continued wrestling into her clothes with weary limbs. She paced out damply, wiping at her hair and downcast face.

“thanks.”

“that’s what 19 you owe me?”

“don’t…”

“Nah, I’m serious. Any one of these days I’m gonna wind up dirty and butt naked and _I’ll_ be counting on _you_ to carry me around.”

It was almost a joke. But there was something truthful in his assurance.

“you’ve covered my butt before, don’t think I’m not grateful.” he said sincerely.

She patted absentmindedly at her pockets in her embarrassment.

“looking for these?” he handed her keys back.

She nodded, “cheers”

“don’t need ‘em anymore. I’ve already read your diary.” he chuckled.

This appeared to be the exactly wrong thing to say.

Her face went red and cracked into a pained grimace.

“hey-” he said softly, startled by this reaction, and the threat of tears “hey I was joking…”

He hugged her to his chest.

“you wanna talk about it?”

She shook her head.

“kid…you can’t go setting everything on fire….what’s been going on? It’s been years since you’ve done this-”

“don’t remind me.” She squeaked.

“is it the nightmares again?” he asked carefully

She considered letting this lie end the questions, but remembered too clearly his comforting acts during her life-long bouts of night terrors. She owed him that much, not to let him go on imagining she was still that sad little child with all those torments creeping back for her.

“no.”

“you _were_ dreaming Liz.”

She looked up a him with red-rimmed eyes. “you saw?”

“some of it. One minute you were snug as a bug and then, well… poof. Tossing and turning.” he gestured.

She glanced tearfully into the middle distance. He’ll never need to know….wait…

“‘ _we_ covered for you?’” she recalled

“Fish-fingers is shit at secrets. But we play this right, I don’t think anyone’s gonna ask him”

Shit.… Abe, She thought.

“Liz, really….what’s happening with you?”

She pushed back from him.

“I- I need to….food.” She paced away cursing herself, tears welling up.

Stupid stupid stupid stupid.

He sighed.

“me too kid…I’ll catch you up.” 

He watched her leave and turned to disrobe and grab his own overdue shower.

He ran a finger over the faint bloody splotch on his pajama pants. There was a little patch of viscous tissue that had let him know right away it wasn’t from her cut.

Hormones he pondered? Big deal, gods knows the kid’s always had plenty of that….never any extra trouble….

Kid…maybe that was unfair. Maybe she was like him now. Trapped in. Finishing the race to nowhere, and finding out there was no room left to grown up. 

Dammit. He’d have to talk to Abe. Can’t leave the potato to blow up all on her own.


	3. Tides of change

The Professor knock cordially on Liz’s door.

“may I come in?”

She stifled back the last of her tears, wiping her sleeve desperately over the last evidence of her upset.

“n-yeah…”

He walked carefully in and shut the door.

“Abe seems to think you’re having a tough time.”

She stayed quiet. Not giving him any edge to work from. ‘Abe thinks-’ was a popular game growing up. It had taken her only two years to consider that this was an easy bluff for angling at secrets. Of which she’d had many- but never for long.

No, today she wasn’t fessing up to anything.

“Does he now.”

“…I realize….I’ve let you down. All of you.”

She shook her head.

“I might have…taught you in terms of what others do. Not left a clear sense of where you each fit into the picture.”

“sometimes we can’t fit… That’s life.”

He sat carefully on the bed beside her.

“I’m not upset you know.”

She looked up at him cautiously, unsure what he knew or was getting at.

“We all have our little moments….the trick is, what then?”

He passed her a prescription bottle.

She shook her head, tears welling up.

“Not a solution any of us want is it.” He patted her hand “maybe we just pay careful mind where you fall asleep. Like…the old days.”

She shivered.

“it isn’t just….being asleep.”

He nodded.

“what is it you need child?”

Child, she thought bitterly. 

“some room.” away from this…my only family…because they don’t leave me any space to grow….if there is any room for that in this world.

“maybe….and maybe you need to use that room to figure out what’s happening yes.”

Fairly certain I know what’s happening. Just no idea why, or how I’m meant to fix it, she thought.

She gave him a warm hug.

“I don’t want you to feel trapped.” he rasped.

I am old man. I am.

“I know.” She finished with a squeeze. 

“Dammit Abe, ya gonna make me play twenty questions? What do you mean ‘not my business’? I’m stuck doing the heavy lifting here how come I get to be the last to know why?”

“It’s just how it is you scarlet primate. Screaming at me can’t fix it.”

Hellboy grinned “just watch me.” he puffed on his cigar stub “that bad? really?”

“she might not talk to me ever again if I tell.”

He waved his lit end in front of the tank.

“see this? this may have to last me months now. Last night’s quick thinking is costing me big.”

“well you’re so clever, why don’t you hazard a guess.”

“something is bothering her _real_ bad.”

“how insightful, and they call me psychic”

“Can-it, I’m serious. I mean the shit I know about her, what can’t she talk about all of a sudden? She’s never had secrets from me.”

“yes. Have you ever stopped to think about why that is?”

“one- cause I’m a nosy bastard. and two- because she has no where to keep ‘em.”

“just hold that thought for a moment why don’t you.”

“I get it, I get it- she wants privacy.” he shrugged “How’s that been panning out for her? None of us get much around here even when we aren’t loosing our clothes. ”

“ _you_ still have ‘under the mattress’” the amphibian sassed, as if describing an exotic and uncharted land.

He flashed him a ‘told ya’ glance “Never play poker blue….under the mattress huh…”

His face went more solemn. 

“guess I can’t really help her there….even if I bought her a flame retardant document safe- she wouldn’t exactly bum a copy of hustler off me.”

“I think you’re looking at this far too literally…”

“no, no….I think I see what you’re getting at….” Images of her writhing body burned in his memory.

Abe was caught between the exasperated marvel of how slow Red could be, and the nagging feeing he’d betrayed some unspoken trust giving him any hints.

“damn….I can’t help her can I.”

Abe bit his tongue.

“it wasn’t a _bad_ dream after all” he shook his head gesturing finger raised with sudden understanding “ _that_ , is unfair.”

He paced tail thrashing in comprehension and second hand anger

“If I scorched crap every time I got excited.” He whistled.

“Yes. Your subtlety is a virtue.”

Hellboy’s eyes blazed back at him. The joking suddenly not funny.

“shut it shrimp. you were just preaching the value of privacy.”

“ _I_ can’t help it.”

“look, it isn’t- it’s not like that ok. It was just a fleeting moment.”

“I’m not accusing you of anything.”

“accuse me nothing! you-!….you know I’d never…not the kid! I love her more than-” He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“She’s grown up Red.” 

“none of that stuff ever-” he protested fighting the now confusing context surrounding his memories of her.

“I know.” Abe said kindly.

He blinked his nictitating membranes, eyeing the tormented face before him.

“why the guilt?”

“Shut up.”

“no, I mean it.”

“you know why.”

“I know why you _think_ you should be feeling it. I’m not so convinced.”

“you breath a word of this to-” he froze as a terrible deja vu and perspective shift swept over him.

‘No, that at least can’t be it.’ 

He shook his head and stormed out.

Abe sighed. As thick as he was wide that one. He’d grasped Liz’s volatile response to excitement like an inconvenience of mere embarrassment. And from his perspective that’s all it effectively was. He hadn’t stopped to question the more lethal implications…or where he happened to fit into that puzzle. 

Hellboy slammed his horn stubs grumpily against his wall.

Naked or dressed, Liz had always been Liz to him.

At worst he had to confess on some deep psychological level, he’d always thought of her as his. But that was the attitude left over from a very young, albeit persistent extension of himself. 

It was the same way he’d always seen the cats as his, Abe as his….Father as his. 

Clingy perhaps…but there were many forces that had tried to take all of these people and things away from him…and not to put them somewhere better. 

He remembered fit’s he’d thrown when they’d tried to take Liz away. So many times. The bunkers, the restraints, the drugs, the cold apathy and fear. She’d been just a child alone. Like the rest of us he reflected, recalling his own conflicted years. He’d so stubbornly clung, and made her his, like so many other things…because nothing ever really was. The best he could ever do was ‘my responsibility’.

Never ‘his child’ he had to admit. She was her own child. She’d grown to be fond of father….but she’d never exactly seen her self as anyone’s. She felt too caustic, too disposable, too guarded to really see herself as part of the family. But they were all hers. 

It had taken years of confusion and resentment, but at the very least she’d achieved a similar attitude to Hellboy- they all belonged to her. 

Liz darted her eyes to Abe.

She stood painfully aware of his insight, desperately ignorant on how he was handling it.

‘What have you told them?’ she thought pointedly at him.

he cast his eyes down.

Bruttenholm was leading Liz into the library.

It was more a symbol of trust than anything else, but he went on at length on the virtues of self reflection before major decisions.

He markedly ignored the bare space by the fire as he fished out two volumes and passed them to her.

“-worth a read in any case.”

Her eyes were still fixed to the aquatic fly on the wall….elephant in the room.

‘never could keep asecret. Neither one of us.’ She shook her head.

‘What must you think of me.’

Bruttenholm bid them goodnight, shuffling away down the long hallway.

“All grown up suddenly.”

She failed to meet his gaze, eyeing the scorched carpeting.

“I could have boiled you in your tank and torched Bruttenholm’s Library to dust.”

He said nothing despite the many objections he had to the sentiment…he knew it was true.

“you’ll figure this out.”

She shook her head.

“there’s nothing to be done. I’m just a step closer to that empty room and a set of straps.”

“he won’t leave you there.”

She glanced up at him.

“maybe he ought to.”

“I….I understand the shame you’re feeling. It’s what you're used to. But…you’ve been slowly coming to embrace your anger, maybe this-”

“when it’s useful Abe. _This_ , can never, be useful.”

“you’re human Liz.” 

She flinched, she’d always responded badly to the term. It felt like both a rejection, and a lie.

“no Abe, I’m worse even than that.”

“what I mean is, you can’t control everything.”

She looked up at him angrily.

“I don’t need _you_ to tell me that.”

“but maybe he can help.”

She clamped her eyes shut tight against the visions in her head.

“Liz he can’t be hurt-”

“Look! Shut-up. It’s more complicated than that ok? It’s not just a matter for logistics.”

She hugged herself

“I mean it’s only natural I have confusing feelings about all of this. My whole life I’ve been closer to him than anyone else…that doesn’t make this right.”

Abe sighed.

“and you’re wrong…he _can_ be hurt….and so can I.” she whispered

He tilted his head.

“Look, you know what I mean.” She screwed up her face “this could hurt Us….and us is all I have.”

She blushed, eyeing the visible conflict in her confidant’s body language.

“what have you told him?”

“nothing.”

“ok scratch that, I’m rephrasing it. What has he figured out.”

“He’s guessed you’re struggling with well, adult emotions.”

“great” she groaned “what do you think, is he going launch into a lecture on the birds and the bees, or mock me for weeks.”

“He’s taking this seriously Liz.”

“that is terrifying news Abe!”

Abe shrugged, swimming about as the silence breathed.

“did you have a talk with father? about this I mean”

“not in so many words.” Liz rang her hands.

Hellboy sat idling through old snap shots. Mostly the two of them grubby after missions, clowning around. A very old one of her pulling a nauseated face as he kissed her on the cheek. 

Her face covered in amusing sharpy drawings after she’d passed out on the job. 

He gazed over to his truck bed to where a very different catalog of images lurked concealed between the cracks. God dammit Abe. 

For him such contemplation had forever dwelled in the realm of distant hypotheticals, identity-less and absurd images that littered centerfolds and playing cards.

He’d never been forced to see any of it as real. Never associated any such drives or feelings with his life…..until last night.

He slammed his fist on the couch, raising dust.

Liz was Liz, always, always, always. The context in which she existed, and the thoughts and feelings he’d tied up with all those salacious publications never ever overlapped. But in the theatre of his mind she writhed in the fire, an unfamiliar expression on her face. He tossed down the photographs. 

She was hurting, and here he was isolating himself in all this confusion and doubt. 

It wasn’t as if they’d played tea party or some shit. He didn’t raise her, and she was never quite as young as her age. And come to think of it he was never quite as old as his. In many ways he’d tried to make it his job to keep her from….well if not to keep her from growing up…to keep her from becoming some joy-less bitter old soul before her time.

Comrades, siblings maybe….

He remembered holding her in his arms, warm in the flames.

She’d been upset, but he’d still found comfort in the moment, and hoped he’d provided some himself. Her arms squeezing tight, safe to exert themselves on him. 

And then he recalled her very different heightened emotions last night in the study.

And reflected on what that could do to an ordinary man.

It suddenly felt selfish and wrong to want to hold her. Even with the depth of affection in that desire. Even if she’d find comfort….

Here she was struggling, and all he could think of was himself, feeling bad for thinking about her.

“knock knock”

Hellboy looked guiltily with bright eyes.

She was leaning in shyly from the doorframe.

“you missed dinner…”

She stepped in, two warm mugs in hand.

She set them down and sat beside him.

“you ok?”

He nodded.

“sure kid, sure.”

He looked weary, glancing to the photos that littered the little coffee table before him.

She’d done this to him. All that bravado and humor in the face of horror, and she’d brought the world crumbling with her shitty hormones. She cursed in the privacy of her mind.

Dammit- she’s the one with an emotional crisis not me- Hellboy thought, and here she is doing what I should have done for her.

She swallowed.

“I never really thanked you properly, for last night and this morning…it meant a lot.”

“Anytime, you know that…..I want to help.”

She nodded. “some things can’t be helped.”

“I…I realize you might not want my help with all what you’re going through. But I want you to know, I’m here if you need me.”

She sighed- picking through the snap shots and kicking her leg. “what did Abe let slip out?”

“this is all such difficult stuff Liz. I know it’s all private…or at least it ought to be.”

She nodded.

“but….it hurts me, thinking what you must be going through all alone.”

She tentatively put an arm over his back, pulling him into a soft side hug.

He froze at the contact, caught in the conflicting layered reasons he wanted to grip her back.

She hesitated, not wanting to let her desire to hold him overpower her. Wanting a hug to be what it always had been between them. She felt him stiffen, not leaning into her as he always had.

He saw the sadness in her eyes- felt her drawing back, rejected. Forever alone.

No.

He squeezed her to him, burying his face in her neck.

She held her breath, gripping back, trying so hard not to-

His hand was rubbing her back and then-

She flared up in his grip.

it was gone in an instant- just a sudden catching and then smoke.

He pulled back in startled concern.

“sorry! I’m sorry!”

Her shirt was singed, revealing a hint of charred bra-strap where the collar had been eaten away.

Her blush still burned in place of flames.

“did I do that?” He asked

She covered her self looking away.

“Are you mad at me?”

She shook her head no.

He heaved a breathless inaudible chuckle of relief. He’d been worried he’d crossed some line.

He poked her gently in the ribs.

“you’re on a hair trigger kiddo.”

He drew back more seriously.

“does it scare you…around ordinary people I mean?”

“what ordinary people?” She shrugged

“Well fine, flammable people.”

She shrugged. It really hadn’t been an issue so far.

“I’ve been close to you my whole childhood HB. If I can’t handle _that_ anymore. what hope do I have.”

He rubbed his left hand over her cooling surface, tracing up her arm to feel her shoulder, remembering how soft she always was.

“I’ve been wondering that same thing.”

“thanks” she said rolling her eyes

“no, I mean-” He trailed off, reflecting on his own isolation.

She looked up at him curiously.

“-don’t get me wrong! I never- it never meant anything to me ok!?”

He hissed at the hurt expression that passed her face

“shit!-that came out wrong, that came out wrong- It, you…it never used to mean _that_ to me ok.”

“never used to?”

“I mean it still doesn’t-” He thudded his fist gently and futilely on the couch beside him “you’re you first and foremost, always have been always will be. But now you’re also-”

She hugged him back.

He slumped into her.

“I don’t know what we are anymore. I don’t know what we ever were.”

“you’re my best friend.” She spoke into his shoulder.

He breathed out. Grateful the word ‘brother’ hadn’t come tumbling out.

It would be strange enough having a brother and sister be what they were to each other, even that definition would leave everything they’d experienced together so far in an uncomfortable light. And it had never been uncomfortable, any of it….until now.

“I need you Liz.”

He held her closer.

“whatever you are to me, however it has to be I need you. Stick around.”

She exhaled into his neck, arms winding him close. 

His heart was beating like a marching band. They’d always had a calming effect on each other..not now. He sat and considered the palpable presence of butterflies in his stomach, and…

Oh no….

She sighed gently against his skin.

Oh no….

The gravity of her body against his seemed to sink in as he felt her breath. a small repetitious action, with a gentle shifting and soft sighs.

This was not normal, 

Abe was right.


End file.
